Ann Coulter is a loudmouth ignoramus who spouts her outrageous nationalist inaccuracies on American television with little challenge from the empty talking heads who interview her. But she finally found someone to stand up to her, in Canada--and she was exposed for the arrogant fool she is.

Interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Company's Bob McKeown for the investigative TV broadcast "The Fifth Estate," which devoted an hour-long January 26 special to how U.S. media have been highjacked by conservative bullies, Coulter was berating Canada for not sending troops to Iraq when she displayed her empty-headedness in the following exchange:

Coulter: "Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice-versa. I mean Canada sent troops to Vietnam - was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?"

"Coulter never got back to us -- but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam."

You can see the entire exchange by clicking here.

Of course, Coulter was dead wrong. [b]In fact, Canada's attitude toward America's war in Vietnam was extremely critical under several governments of our neighbor to the north. For example, when Prime Minister Lester Pearson--who'd won a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in defusing the '50s Suez crisis-- gave an April 2, 1965 speech at Temple University calling for a pause in U.S. bombing of Vietnam, he was the subject of rather notorious treatment by Lyndon Johnson at their subsequent meeting: LBJ grabbed the much smaller Canadian by the lapels, lifted him off the floor, and hollered, "You pissed on my rug!"

Pearson's successor, Pierre Trudeau, signaled his attitude toward the war in Vietnam when he granted political asylum to tens of thousands of draft-age Americans who fled to Canada to avoid having to fight in Vietnam, saying: "'Those who make the conscientious judgment that they must not participate in this war ... have my complete sympathy, and indeed our political approach has been to give them access to Canada. Canada should be a refuge from militarism." (How one wishes the current prime minister, Paul Martin, would take the same position with regard to those war resisters in uniform who have gone to Canada because of their opposition to what the U.S. is doing in Iraq.)

This is hardly the first time Coulter has invented "facts." To take just one more example, David Corn last year wrote a Nation web-post recounting how Coulter claimed, on the Chris Matthews Show, that George C. Scott had turned down his Oscar for the movie "Patton" because he was protesting the "critical" treatment of the general by Hollywood liberals. And even when Matthews challenged her on it and told her why she was wrong, she persisted in her falsehood.

The historically ignorant Coulter should be hiding in shame, and owes the Canadians an apology for insisting on her blatant untruth--while network bookers who continue to invite her to guest on their shows should be hiding under their desks if they maintain this empty-headed, epithet-throwing fictionalist on their rosters.

(Thanks to the Canadian correspondent of This Is Rumor Control for spotting and providing the transcript of Coulter's on-air comeuppance).

It also looks like the Ann/Rush/Faux News?Christian Right-Rapture believer sets have been making inroads into the brains of young college (and hight school) students:

THE KIDS AREN'T ALL RIGHT--CONSERVATIVE ATTITUDES AMONG COLLEGE FRESHMEN

Hard on the heels of the alarming Knight Foundation survey of U.S. teens DIRELAND previously discussed, showing our high-schoolers' disdain for the niceties of the First Amendment, comes now a survey of the attitudes of first-year college students with some more bad news.

Sponsored by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California/Los Angeles, the just-released survey shows, among other things, that:

~ a solid majority (58.6%) of freshmen think colleges should prohibit racist/sexist speech on campus, which shows little understanding of what the First Amendment really means--as does the finding that 43.7% believe that colleges have the right to ban extreme speakers;

~making marriage equality for same-sex couples legal is supported by only a minority (48.3%) of first-year college males--which strongly suggests this could still be a hot-button electoral issue for years to come--while 38% of male freshmen believe it is important to have laws prohibiting homosexual relationships, a disturbingly large number.

~a slim majority (50.4%) believe that affirmative action in college admissions should be abolished (the number is higher among males at 56.1%)

~only a slim majority (53.9%) believe that abortion should be legal

~A significant majority believes there is too much concern in the courts for the rights of criminals (58.1% --but among males the number jumps to 61.0%), which indicates that demagogic law-and-order themes will still bring electoral profit with the coming generation.

Moreover, as the Chronicle of Higher Education noted in its report on the survey, "A growing number of students appeared unlikely to have a diverse set of friends in college. Only 63.1 percent reported that they expected to socialize with people outside their own racial or ethnic group, the lowest level since the question was first added to the survey in 2000.

"'Social groups may indeed be less diverse at some public universities in large states like California, where the recent demise of affirmative-action programs means that fewer minority students are gaining acceptance,' said Sylvia Hurtado, director of the institute at UCLA.

"'The diversity in classes at a lot of the large public universities has decreased,' said Ms. Hurtado. 'Just in the University of California system alone, the number of African-American students attending has gone down incredibly.'

"Yet students said they cared less than ever before about those issues. Only 29.7 % cited 'helping to promote racial understanding' as an 'essential' or 'very important' goal for them, compared with 46.4 percent in 1992."

"More students also said they believed that racial discrimination was no longer a problem in America, with 22.7 percent agreeing with that statement, the highest level in the history of the survey...."

Clearly, the society's dominant conservative values have been beaten into the brains of so many kids entering college that education may have a tough time eradicating many of these kids' prejudices and the myths they've bought into--and remember, they'll be voting from now on, too...

Related Reading: In Friday's Chicago Sun-Times, Tom Lipscomb has a salutary op-ed discussing the Knight Foundation survey and the decline in high school newspapers and the indifference of school administrators has combined to reduce civic literacy about, among other matters, the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment.

When they're my age and they and their children and grandchildren are still paying for Bush's legacy of the largest deficit in American history, they're going to look back and rue the day and the choices they have made.

I am more and more convinced that we are now reaping the consequences of our schools' neglect in educating our students better in American History, Civics, Social Studies, and Geography.

High schools not publishing school newspapers may be contributing to this also, more than we could ever have realized. In my state, school adherence to a curriculum that only addresses standardized tests has taken the place of real, hands-on learning.

Now, we're going to pay for that for years to come and for generations to come.

George Washington and the founding fathers would weep, too.

Catherine

_________________

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

Does this say that men are more threatened by homosexual issues than females? Or are they just afraid of anything that might change their status in society? Or is it possible that a great majority of men feel an attraction to other men and are frightened to death of admitting it? Would it be true to ask these questions more so about "the insecure white male"?

I ask these questions as a part white, part native American female who grew up in the racist south.

I truly believe that the white men feel threatened by any and every little thing that threatens what the presume to be their "God given right" to control everything. Whether they admit it or not most white men seem to think they are smarter & "better" than other races and they want to keep it that way.

As a 'straight' female, I find the thought of having sex with another woman absolutely ing but I also find the thought of having sex with a lot of men that I know to be ing..... think george bu$h, Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert , Tom DeLay..... LOL

What those same people do with their private life is not the business of government or any other person as long as they do no harm to anyone else.

The fact that college freshmen are this naive is not really surprising in this day and age. They have been raised as the "me, me, me" generation(s) and self pleasure has been the main goal all of their life. I think we can directly credit that to people like george bu$h.

What are these kids supposed to think when everything they see in public life is the opposite of what their parents think they are teaching them.

As for total ignorance (and proud of it), we are still hearing the screams of righteous indignation when anyone criticizes their hero and god, george bu$h who they believe to be the epitome of their mantra, "you can be as dumb as schitt and still become rich and famous"!

One thing we know for sure........ they are in for the "shock and awe" of their lives in a few years.

My daughter is a college freshman and a few days ago I was looking at a paper that she brought home to critique for another student in an English composition class. She had marked what she thought needed changing or correcting and asked me what I thought.

What I thought was, "what the hell is this kid doing in college instead of the fifth grade?" ! !

No, their attitudes are not surprising. What is surprising to me is that most of these parents are still working their buns off and doing without to send these kids to school and in the process have taught these kids everything that they have to know from personal experience is a crock.

Have you taken a look at textbooks for History, Social Studies, etc lately? They are junk and we are paying outrageous prices for these sorry books. It almost makes me wish that I had saved my textbooks from the 50's & 60's and home schooled them!!

Pardon my rant..... I need to quit here before I get really angry. Something is really screwed up when sticking our noses in the business of other people is more important than a good basic education.

You know, before Ann Coulter put her leg in there, she could have recouped by responding in a way where she admitted her error and not have looked like a complete fool (a fool, but not a complete one). But to sit there and inssist Canada sent troops to Vietnam and tell the Canadian Moderator HE WAS WRONG when he of all people would know they didn't send troops there, how stupid she must feel. We'll see if she appears on Drudge tonight and they downplay the whole thing.

_________________"The People Who Vote Have No Power. The People Who Count The Vote Have All The Power"